


Defining Moments

by mogwai_do



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 12:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago by anyone's standards two young boys faced the Schism; it didn't change what they were, but it set the seal on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defining Moments

It was howling, empty and cold, inside his head. The boy curled in on himself, wrapping skinny arms around skinny legs as if it would help, but it didn’t. It felt like his hearts had fallen right out of his chest, leaving a gaping chasm that was hungry for the rest of him. He stifled a sob and rubbed his face roughly on the sleeve of his tunic. It was different for everyone they’d been told; it was supposed to be the defining moment of their lives, but as hushed as the secret was kept, everyone knew of the ones who killed themselves and everyone feared their moment before the Schism. He wondered if this was what drove them to suicide: the emptiness, the raw, starving need that ate away at the soul.

He breathed shakily, feeling his hearts pound in his chest. He turned his head and through tear-blurred eyes saw the twin moons high above the Mountains of Solitude, first dawn was still hours away. He had never believed the taunts of his peers that he was unfit to become a Time Lord, that he was too odd, his friend had always assured him that they were just jealous of his genius, but now he wondered if they hadn’t been right. He curled in on himself tighter, trying to give himself the illusion of another’s comfort. Tradition dictated that initiates remain in their cells until second noon to contemplate the majesty of their destinies as fully-fledged Time Lords, but he didn’t care about that, he never had, much to his tutors’ dismay. He wanted distraction, he wanted comfort, he wanted his friend.

He gasped, suddenly galvanised; he tried to jump to his feet, but after so long immobile he was stiff and he stumbled, arms wheeling, almost falling before he caught himself. The door lock was more symbol than actual prevention; no initiate would dream of leaving their cell before the ordained time. Even so, it should still have been beyond him, it was beyond most of his peers, but he’d always been good with locks. After a few moments he heard the click as the lock disengaged and he fled his cell as if the gaping abyss in his mind were devouring the ground beneath his heels.

They had been assigned cells in different wings, kept apart by design, as if mere distance would ever stop them, the two most notorious initiates in the history of the academy to hear their tutors tell it and the most brilliant too, but that was never spoken of. The boy ran through the empty halls, the stone slabs cold and hard on his bare feet; the other initiates were all locked in, silent and obedient, and there was no-one to see him pass. He found the door he wanted and skidded to a halt, prising the lock panel off and working frantically, as if the emptiness in his mind might catch him before he could find safety inside.

The door unlocked and slid open quietly and he darted in, sealing it behind him as if it would help. His friend didn’t seem to notice his entrance; he still wore the formal robes they had worn for the initiation. He sat on the floor, curled in on himself, but where the boy’s arms had been wrapped around his knees, his friend’s hands were pressed to his head as if he could block out whatever he felt and his mind had turned in on itself in pain and fear.

The boy crossed the room quickly and dropped to his knees beside his friend, who turned to look at him slowly, his cobalt blue eyes wet with tears. 

“It hurts,” he whispered brokenly and the boy didn’t care about the rules anymore, because this was his friend, who didn’t think he was weird or strange, who actually thought it was a good thing, and who wasn’t afraid to stand up for him even in the face of his father’s authority. The boy shuffled closer, wrapping his arms and legs around his friend in an all body hug, pressing his forehead to the nape of his friend’s neck and opening his mind for whatever comfort it might offer. He could feel the fear-fast beat of his friend’s hearts pound through them both so loudly it almost hurt, but gradually, the boy felt his friend uncurl slightly against him, mind and body drawing comfort from the mental and physical touch. The boy closed his eyes, feeling the double drum of his friend’s hearts slow against his chest; the howling was still there, clawing at his soul, but now he had his friend, the only friend he’d ever had, and for him he could be strong and finally face the emptiness that pursued him.

Gathering his courage, the boy looked out into the abyss and felt it look into him in turn, and he gasped, his grip tightening involuntarily on his friend. It wasn’t empty anymore: golden threads knotted and twisted and coiled over and around each other stretching into infinity, past and future, thousands upon thousands of timelines and he could see them, feel them all like they’d woven themselves through his very soul, weft to their warp. He breathed out in awed wonder and felt the body in his arms shiver as his breath played coolly over his friend’s skin. 

“Look at it,” he breathed softly, feeling his friend’s mind turn to him and then in trust turn to that newly woken part of them.

“Oh,” barely breathed, but he could feel his friend’s mind reach out, mental fingers trailing through the threads the same way his physical fingers played in the streams of his father’s estates. He felt something fierce unfurl inside him then, inside his friend, something instinctual and joyful and terrible and they shared it all, forgetting the hearts-pounding fear and the devouring loneliness. In the cold stone of the citadel, between the empty spaces of the slow setting moons, they had become Lords of Time. He felt a surge of exultation ricochet between them and he grinned, meeting his friend’s eyes and seeing that same urge to shout out their victory to the skies. Despite their tutors’ palpable expectation of failure, they were Time Lords and it didn’t matter what the Council decreed, together they would change the universe.

FIN


End file.
